Does every Star Trek adventure HAVE to have social commentary? Can't they just be a fun romp? Because there sure are a lot of Star Trek adventures that don't have commentary to them.
I was responding to fireproof.
The point that I have attempted to make is that Abrams Trek has plenty of social commentary, that is subtle and woven throughout the films.
Also, I will disagree on character development. Kirk and Spock go through tremendous changes and struggles to reach the points that they do as part of their character arcs.
I'll not go on, as I think there are legitimate grievances with Abrams Trek and I don't think they are perfect. I do think they capture the adventurous spirit of TOS with some social commentary included in.
Plus, it's two hours. How many characters in any of the series go through much development in two episodes?
in the Fellowship of the Ring, Frodo and Sam go through plenty of character development. Even Boromir, one of the weaker characters in the film had some interesting development.
Done right, anything is possible.
I felt watching ST09 that the main characters were "forced"; they had shallow, contrived arcs that just didn't feel "natural". To each his own

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(@Ghouleddie: By character development, I mean that Chris Pine's Kirk had the consistency of warm yogurt, McCoy had the rough and tumble feel of an old undershirt discarded for having too many holes to wear, and Uhura was just a pair of legs.)